Kevin L, Author at Kevin Low

Morality of Markets

I’ve previously introduced Michael Sandel’s lectures on Justice in Harvard. I haven’t finished the series despite great interest in it but I recently watched another of his lectures, one at Chautauqua where he talks about the Morality of Markets. In some sense, I was particularly interested in this issue and believe that all those trained in Economics should be made to study it. After all, Adam Smith was a Moral Philosopher. The philosophical element of Economics is becoming lost in our study of it today.

Markets Corrupts?

That is what makes this particular Michael Sandel lecture extremely insightful. He starts with the idea that we’re now plagued by market triumphalism and he tries to question what is wrong with that. As often in his lectures, he poses a scenario either hypothetical or based on actual proposals in the real world and then solicits opinions from the audience. He eventually surfaces his points and ideas from the responses of the audience and does a brilliant summary of the issue.

He gives a good and important point in his conclusion of this lecture that explains why we should not allow markets to expand indefinitely in our lives. In other words, there are areas where markets can, indeed serve the best interests of the societies especially when we all can agree that the market system gives an accurate and fair valuation of the good or service involved. Unfortunately there are values out of the consideration of the market that we might cherish and therefore we should not allow particular goods or services to become commodities to be traded and transacted. The danger of the markets is that it leaves its mark on the commodities that are traded; the values that we cherish becomes diluted, corrupted by the market system.

The example of paying a child to read is important in illustrating this. We should cherish reading not because of the monetary gains but the intrinsic value derived from joy of reading and learning. Therefore when we start paying children to read, it sends out the wrong messages and distorts the valuation of reading. The trick then, perhaps is a solution around this limitation of the market, to be able to remove that mark that market leaves on the thing traded. Unfortunately there’s no easy solution and possibly none. This is a strong argument against markets and while it is applied to a small group of tricky issues, they are worth pondering over.

Michael Sandel makes Political Philosophy and Moral Philosophy not only accessible to the public and ordinary, non-philosophy students but also makes extremely relevant connections between traditional Western Philosophy and the issues plaguing us in the modern world. It’s really fortunate that we are able to access his lectures even though we are not studying in Harvard or in America. There are other videos of his public lectures available on FORA.tv.

Impersonal travel

I write this time on something less relevant to my usual muses about politics, the environment, geography or economics, as I leave for India tomorrow and wont be writing until April. I was trying very hard to find inspiration to write something different or something I’d feel passion for, but I did not find any in The Straits Times or this week’s The Economist. Instead, I found an article about travel on Financial Times. In their Travel column, Sophy Roberts writes about how tourism and travel nowadays is all about the crowds: plenty of people thronging the same sights as you, making the place feel very impersonal and leaving you with a bad impression and aftertaste.

Roberts writes about her own experiences in Venice and somewhere closer to home: Angkor Wat. All these tourist hotspots are becoming too popular and visited by too many people that many times when you visit a place what you see there most of the time is people and not so much the real place of interest. Tourism is pretty much a commercial concept, of course, but it seems to have become too commercial and too popular. The clamour towards the middle class has also unleashed this attitude or desire to see the world and experience what it’s like outside, which is not bad unless thousands of others think like you and wish to do the same.

Even I am guilty of having this desire to see the world and travel to everywhere and anywhere I can. My passion as a geographer developed very much as a result of and with the desire to see the world beyond Singapore. And it is important to travel outside of your home country to experience the diversity of cultures. It’s just sad that many of these tourist places have now become too saturated with unfettered tourists, especially during peak season, that it just taints your experience or could even destroy the whole beauty of travelling around.

I wonder if I were in the writer’s shoes, would I have done what she did, to fork out that kind of money to get exclusive access to less-crowded places. Personally, I have visited places that I felt would have been beautiful were it not for the huge crowds, especially in China. When I visited Hainan Island twice in 2006, the beaches that I visited were actually really beautiful places, but the whole picture was tainted by the tremendous numbers of tourists like myself who wanted a piece of the place. And in my plans for future travel, I keep thinking about visiting places that are not saturated with tourists, but then I would not be able to keep within my tight budgets if I were to really backpack across Malaysia.

Then again, for some tourist attractions, it is the tremendous number of people there that gives you the vibe and excitement. Kuta Beach in Bali, when I visited in 2008, was not that crowded but I think I might have felt the holiday mood more if there were more beachgoers and more surfers around. I sure hope that when I visit the Taj Mahal in India, I will not have to fight with the crowds to take a photo of this Wonder of the World.

The writer ends by saying that “cliche… has long been an intrinsic part of tourism”. Maybe.

Interesting ideas for green transportation

Well, I dont intend to touch on or cover the conventional ideas people have about green transportation, but I was quite intrigued by two innovations that The Economist introduced in their Technology Quarterly this week. These are places you normally wont hunt when thinking about cost-savings and environmental-friendliness, but it reminds you that there are actually many areas to work on to do your part for the environment, not necessarily on the biggest or most radical of ideas like, say, using electric cars.

The first innovation is a collapsible shipping container. If this catches on, it could overhaul the way ports work, as well as alter how our port at Tanjong Pagar and West Coast look like. Made from “a fibreglass composite”, it is cheaper to produce than the normal steel containers. The weight and space / volume savings would significantly reduce transportation costs (such as the number of ships used to transport the crates, the amount of fossil fuels used for the ships) which would then help reduce the environmental impact of shipping and trade. Treehugger has more details regarding this innovation.

The second innovation focuses on the wheels of vehicles and how they can be made more in more environmentally-friendly means as well as make driving more environmentally-friendly. The material used to make the tyres are now being modified to either increase fuel economy of the vehicles they are mounted on or to make the production of tyres greener.

Small improvements and advancements in terms of technology, but we need all these little contributions to “business as usual” by the private sector if governments are unwilling or unable to carry out the sweeping reforms necessary.

Stealth Marketing

I frequently go on to Apple Trailers to look out for interesting movies that are upcoming or that I’ve been missing out. They offer a good mix of films from Hollywood as well as some independent film makers. Recently, The Joneses caught my attention. Their own movie site is not exactly ready yet but here’s the synopsis from IMDb:

“The Joneses”, a social commentary on our consumerist society. Perfect couple Steve and Kate Jones, and their gorgeous teen-aged children Jenn and Mick, are the envy of their posh, suburban neighborhood filled with McMansions and all the trappings of the upper middle class. Kate is the ultimate trend setter – beautiful, sexy, dressed head-to-toe in designer labels. Steve is the admired successful businessman who has it all: a gorgeous wife, big house and an endless supply of high-tech toys. Jenn and Mick rule their new school as they embody all that is hip and trendy – cool clothes, fast cars and the latest gadgets. But as the neighbors try to keep up with the Joneses, none are prepared for the truth about this all- too perfect family.

Obviously, the title comes from the English catchphrase, Keeping up with the Joneses but the idea is interesting. The Joneses is a perfect family made up to market goods to the upscale gated community by a stealth marketing organization. I do suspect that big companies does this sort of things at times but probably more through viral marketing than to consciously employ people to befriend potential customers and introduce goods to them. Whether this is considered ethical, is perhaps what the movie is exploring.

In a sense, the movie calls for a reflection on how social forces are increasingly shaping our economic lives, and at the same time questioning the value of relationships.

The Personal Statement

Your Singapore-Cambridge A Levels Results is just released, you scored pretty decent grades, enough to get you the course you want in University, so now what? The thing that stands between you and the offer to the course you want from the University is an application form (besides the tuition fees of course). And unfortunately the application form is not just about filling up your details and your results, it requires some information of your personality, aspirations and such. And they do this through a Personal Statement (or whatever they call it).

Usually a personal statement doesn’t offer any questions; at least UCAS works that way but they do give some sort of guidelines as to what to include in it. You should generally talk about your academic interest, the motivating factor behind your choice of course and some activities or achievements that is in line with that. Or if appropriate, you could talk about the kind of books you read. After which you can include some of your other interests and the reason for your choice of study setting. And depending on your preferences, you could end with an appeal for an offer.

Unfortunately, not all applications are that liberal with the stuff you can write. Some would restrict you with a question, which students might prefer at times. The most popular question that have been asked is ‘What are some values or beliefs do you hold on most strongly? Give evidence of how you demonstrated them.’ And to tackle this question, you basically have to choose some of these values and beliefs. They come across as pretty generic and the content would depend really on the story you have to tell about yourself. A good story is rare but would come strong; that doesn’t mean that ordinary tales about your life won’t stand out. You’ll never know. Here are some values that you might use and also guidelines as to what life story you can pick.

Discipline – How you managed to keep yourself away from temptations/distractions and pursue your goals (in studies and other endeavors of life)

Integrity – How you have been consistent in your thought, words and deeds (Maybe during leadership stints in CCAs, or what you’ve promised your teachers and friends)

Teamwork – How you might have dropped your own idea in support of a team activity and gone along with everyone (maybe in Project Work)

Compassion – How you’ve gone all out to reduce pain and sufferings of others (perhaps community work and such)

Hard Work – How you worked hard and it paid off (very cliche and overused value so I’m suggesting you don’t use it unless you’ve a unique experience to share)

Balance – How you’ve managed to juggle commitments and the lighter bits of life (once again, drawn from work and life)

Excellence – How you’ve insisted on the best from yourself and the people around you (probably in Project Work or your CCAs again)

There’s also questions that ask for an event or a person that has influenced your life; these usually end up being very cliche sort of writings but then if you know how to package it, even cliche writings can appear impressive. It is important that the influence is positive and powerful if not significant to your current attitudes towards life. This is especially true when your content has something original to offer within the cliche framework in the first place. I’ve seen the essay of a successful Havard Applicant about his mother’s influence in his life; he started out about how a cliche is one because it is often true and then about his mother who is a NASA engineer.

Other questions could simply ask for what you’ve done in your last summer vacation or what you will be doing before entering the university. These are easy for those with exciting experiences like touring around the world or working at an interesting job. For those involved in mundane jobs and boring work, try your best to extract lessons learnt from your workplaces and experience that could be applied to university life or the course of your interest. It could range from making calls and interacting with customers to researching on the Internet for some information your employer have asked you to put together.

Some other general pointers about this writing is to stay humble (humility, incidentally, could be used as one of the values) and to keep description of your experiences simple and free from unrealistic adjectives. Use plain English with more sophisticated sentence structures rather than bombastic words to impress readers. That way, you exhibit maturity of thought rather than a childish urge to flaunt your vocabulary. Finally, paragraph your writing properly and it would be best to get a tutor or teacher to go through it for you. They are experienced and have seen the statements by many other students so would be in a good position to offer advice for improvement.

Little Reorg

ERPZ undergoes continuous improvements and in order to make way for more content on our site, there is a little re-organization going on this few days with the existing content. The Resource menu will now only capture all the notes that we have made available on ERPZ and the A Levels Essays are now placed under the menu heading, “Writings”, together with our book reviews.

We are expecting some articles on interview skills and writing of personal statements coming up to help students who have just received their A Levels results to work on their university and scholarship applications. These articles will be catalogued under a new page under Writings soon.

Stay tuned.

Dot.con

I’ve recently finished John Cassidy’s Dot.con I got from library many days back. John Cassidy is a staff writer at The New Yorker and I always liked his writings about Economics. I’ll probably find a chance to lay my hands on his latest book, How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities soon.

Meanwhile, Dot.con have been an interesting read. It’s an old book, no doubt. I believe reading about the Internet Bubble now seem rather weird given that it has happened a while back and don’t appear to have any immediate relation with what I’ve been working on. Still, I think that events like this have lessons to offer that are often missed out and I was looking to read something a little further back given that I’ve been updating myself with The Economist all the time. John Cassidy didn’t fail me, starting his story from the time when the technology was developing for the rise of modern Internet, describing the roles that the US military and government played in its conception, research funding and even implementation. He combines the events leading up to year 2000 with interesting comparisons of speculative manias of the past and talks about retrospective telltale signs of irrationality.

He introduced me to Charles Mackay and his writing, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I subsequently realised I had the sections of Charles Mackay’s book in my 4-inch tome, The Real Price of Everything by Michael Lewis. Those pieces have just been added into my reading queue.

Cory Johnson reveals that John Cassidy was a rare skeptical voice with regards to the Internet Boom, but failed to live up to the promise of the title of the book:

Indeed, he is unable to dismiss the most fundamental notion (a mantra among the true believers) that the Internet changes everything. Despite the stock market meltdown, almost any reading of the evolving business practice wrought by the Internet suggests that more dramatic changes are yet to come.

In a sense, the Internet is not quite exactly an illusion so to speak. But I don’t think that was what John Cassidy was driving at. His idea is that business fundamentals have been abandoned during the period and it shouldn’t have been. The numbers he cites about businesses losing money even as stock prices climb is startling. He might have been against the arguments of the New Economy though, and he could have supported his argument with the fact that falling prices (with economic expansion) isn’t entirely an internal affair of US but a result of the external forces as well.

I’ve enjoyed the little stories told by Dot.con surrounding the whole boom and crash of the Internet, especially those about individuals trapped in those industries contributing and taking part of the boom. Besides that, Dot.con serves as a good look at human behaviours during a speculative mania.

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in America

Who would think that Colin Goh, a Singaporean columnist, writer and film-maker based in New York, would write something about politics in The Sunday Times? Best (or worst, depending on what you think about politics) of all, his column usually features in the generally light-hearted Lifestyle segment. I normally skip his columns because he keeps writing about his baby and his otherwise banal life in New York, but I was intrigued by his column title for today’s article: “Mad Hatters and US politics”. I read on, to much curiosity and realisation.

He describes how US politics is now quite farcical thanks to the tea party movement that is taking root across much of America. This tea party movement is against big government, and wishes to claim back ground it thinks the government is infriging upon. And of course, this tea party movement is aligned with the Repbulican party and most (if not all) of its values: free markets and no government intervention “whether in the economy, healthcare or the environment”. I felt quite vindicated by his views, as someone who’d profess to be a Democrat if living in America. But let’s not argue about the views of the Democrat. The whole farce about politics in America today is that Republican opposition to policies and initiatives that the Democrats are proposing, can range from sensibly valid to stubbornly nonsensical.

Colin says that “The US government is ‘broken’ because of the political impasse between the two dominant parties, and the revival of the conservative movement.” And he uses Newton’s Third Law of Motion, that “every action is met by an equal and opposite reaction”, to describe the resistance of the Republicans to Democratic measures. He then writes that the conservatives seem unable to see the light about the whole crisis: that “lack of regulation just caused the biggest economic meltdown in years”, and that “the loudest opponents of regulation just happen to be… those evil bankers and corporations”. And I totally agree with him when he finds it “baffling… that conservatives are blaming the sorry state of the nation on the Democrats, who merely inherited the mess” from George W Bush.

And the Republicans are becoming a party of No just as Obama is saying that they should not be doing, for the sake of the nation. While I find it quite wrong for Obama to continue pushing through, by force, legislation on health care reform, the fact that no Republican agrees at all on anything despite already having some of their suggestions integrated into the policy does not make sense. I shall not go into details about health care reform, but suffice to say that as a Singaporean and someone who’s more liberal, I believe that health care reform is necessary and many people sadly are just unwilling to feel the pain in the short term for potential benefits in the long term (as much as this piece of legislation is flawed… which piece of legislation isnt?).

Donna Brazile, in The Mercury, also alludes to the tea party movement (the Republicans and the tea party movement are almost one and the same now) and their vehement resistance to President Obama’s health-care reforms. It gives more detailed examples of how Republican senators who campaigned for certain ideas in the bill to be included in the legislation but yet did an about-turn and dropped support for it in this final stretch of the race towards implementing the bill. It is not like President Obama did not offer them an open hand to reconcile differences, but the chasm between the two sides is probably too huge to surmount.

So has the Mad Hatter (what a coincidence, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is coming to screens near you now!) taken over the Tea Party in America, and made all these Tea Party-goers bonkers?

The source might be slightly biased given that Donna Brazile was a former campaign manager for Al Gore, former vice-president of America and a Democrat. Nevertheless, the problem remains: two polarised parties unable to agree on anything, unwilling to compromise, and hence unable to govern. For the good of all America, please come together to do something. It might be true that President Obama’s views might not reflect the views of the WHOLE population, but to sit there and just say “No” without concrete action (they provided the suggestions to change, but they tend dropped the support for those changes… those are concrete suggestions, but is that concrete action?) will not move the nation forward.

Imperfect Information (Processing)

The Economist ran a special report on Managing Data, which is really about how to Data have become really abundant in our world today and how it might help us at all.

It is interesting how I have got a friend who once commented that all forms of market failure is a result of imperfect information. He says that people are consuming too much or too little of a product because they don’t have perfect information about the impact of the products, and so basically all the inability to analyse cost and benefit is a result of imperfect information. Likewise, to this friend of mine, technological advancement is basically slowly discovering information, truths that we previously know nothing of. Of course, that’s a little extreme and basically demanding perfect knowledge as well. For him, perfect knowledge would naturally be attained from having sufficient information.

The digital age ushered in lots of information; so much that we don’t have enough time to process them. In fact, even cataloguing them might be troublesome enough and the process generates meta-data, which in fact is information about information. They would prove useful though they actually add to the information heap. Say for example I give you a quote:

The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:

If I don’t provide the source, it’s not particularly helpful unless you’re able to identify it from just the content. It’s from Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard the Second. But then that’s just a little bit of metadata; there’s more: it comes from Act II Scene I. And even more: it’s from Line 14-16. The ability to manipulate all these data themselves would create more information too. And they all might just prove to be way too much.

Economics have definitely become more complex thanks to the flood of information. Technology has allowed suppliers to maintain tighter inventory and reduce idle capacity but reality seem to drift further away from classical economics even as the economic agent are becoming more equipped with the information necessary to create a more perfect market. It appears, the next big assumption of Economics about the real world that needs toppling is in fact the idea of independence.